


A Different Path

by BlueLightningAndNexus



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: And Rey took his offer?, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Ben Solo is a tank, Ben and Rey are Hurt, But the slight change of dialogue is the final push, Diverges from TLJ, F/M, Kylo Ren Redemption, Redeemed Ben Solo, Redemption AU, Royal Guards are awesome, Tbh he was already mostly redeemed by this point, What if Ben wasn't stupid?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:27:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23208484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueLightningAndNexus/pseuds/BlueLightningAndNexus
Summary: Ben and Rey team up. They defeat the guards. Everything will work out, right?Well, actually, yes. Unlike in canon, Ben promises to save her friends, realizing that they are the main reason why Rey is still fighting. She takes his hand.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24





	1. The Choice

Before she could even think about what she was doing, Rey acted. It wasn’t planned, particularly well-thought out, and the consequences of what she was about to do didn’t cross her mind at all. But she did it anyway. 

Rey’s left arm jetted out from her side. For a split-second, Ben had know idea what has happening. Then, he felt a small tugging at his side, and it was as if a lightbulb went off over his head. His gloved hand shot out to grab his saber, but it was too late. The weapon came off his belt entirely, Rey’s precision unhooking the ring of Ben’s black leather belt off the handle, and it soared gracefully into her right hand. 

Ben was a moment too slow: he could feel the tips of his gloves grazing the midnight steel as it flew through the cold air of the stuffy Throne Room, past a grinning Snoke and the battalion of Crimson Guards. Immediately after the lightsaber met the rough skin of her palm, Rey leaped into the air, faster than the Guards could even register the attempt on their Supreme Leader’s life. In midair, Rey swung the blade back, her thumb finding its way across the foreign metal to the ignition button. As she moved the plasma edge, crackling with her red-hot rage and determination, in a wide arc, ready to slice Ben’s master into dozens of pieces, she didn’t even realize she played into the palm of Snoke’s hand. 

An animalistic scream escaped her throat and flew out of her mouth, a manifestation of her rage: this man, this monster, had manipulated Ben into betraying her and Luke and everyone. She was going to make him pay. 

His control of the force was instantaneous, his lightning-quick reflexes betraying his aged, withered appearance but matching his counterattack. The tip of the sizzling blade stopped right before it made contact with Snoke’s left temple, as did the body of its user. For the first time in her brief assault, Rey suddenly was overcome with this terrible sense of fear: a cold dripped into her body, filling her eyesight, her muscles, her reflexes. For a moment, she didn’t even realize the Force had wrapped its traitorous, dark grip around her; she just thought her own fright had frozen her in place.  
She couldn’t blink. She couldn’t move her arms or legs or eyes at all. She was just hovering, forced to retain eye contact with Snoke, his dusty irises violating her body and penetrating her soul while his pupils expanded in a horrible gaze of yellow; the fiery, sinister gold of the Sith. Ben, powerless to stop what was happening, could only watch in horror as he had to relive the same treatment he had endured for the last six years of his life, but from an entirely different perspective: the overseer, as opposed to the victim. 

Snoke raised his hand slightly, energy moving from every nerve in his body to the tips of his shriveled, ashen fingers. The crackle of electricity raised the hairs on Rey’s arms and neck, alerting her to what was about to happen. He was going to enjoy this. 

Stories flashed into Rey’s mind, tales of evil, fighting, and red sabers from the scavengers of Jakku. Stories of demonic assassins with red skin and a scalp of bony horns. Stories of elderly masterminds manipulating their environment, casting frightening, pulsing blasts of electricity, torturing their victims with powers beyond her naïve comprehension. Stories of Jedi and Sith locked into eternal conflict, never stopping. 

“You…” he wheezed, the words blowing past his rotted yellow-and-brown teeth, now molded into a minatory ear-to-ear grin that seemed too young and yet all too fitting for his aged expression. “…you have the spirit of a true Jedi…”  
…but you’re still just a child.”

The way he emphasized that last word seemed to deconstruct Rey. It wasn’t as if he was infantilizing her, depriving her of agency; it was as if he was trying to dehumanize her, turn her into some sort of toy for the dark leader. 

She should’ve been terrified for her own safety. For what was about to happen to her. But she wasn’t. If the movement of her head wasn’t restricted, she would’ve been looking over at Ben, trying to see what he was doing and what he was feeling. 

The crackling alerted Rey back to the electricity, forming and combining on Snoke’s gray fingers. Rey couldn’t do much, but she could at least brace herself for the pain that was about to come.  
Lightning blasted into her body, her chest taking most of the impact. It didn’t just hurt; it propelled her through the air and out of Snoke’s grip, all while activating her muscles and sending her into uncontrollable limbic spasms, like some ragdoll flying through the air. A sharp ringing exploded in her ear; Ben’s weapon flew out of her hand.  
The lightsaber spun three times before it stopped, its obsidian shroud pointing at Ben Solo’s kneeling form. 

None of this felt real, for Ben or for Rey. 

Rey hit the group with a thud, the pain surging throughout her body, but she didn’t care. She had movement of her muscles again, however brief the moment was. Rey took in a deep breath, the stuffy, dry oxygen doing its best to rejuvenate her and breathe new life into her battered body. She landed on her back, the impact felt throughout her aching bones. Her bright and glassy hazel eyes looking up at the metallic ceiling, black as space; Rey saw not only her own reflection in the mirror-like roof of the Supremacy, but Ben’s reflection as well. 

Arching her back as best as she could to look behind her, Rey examined his hunched, haunted form. She could barely see his scarred face and onyx eyes behind the black locks of his messy hair. His neck was bent downwards, his face firmly fixed on the ground in front of him. For a split second, she thought Snoke had frozen him as well, but she noticed slight tremors in his right hand, then his right arm, then his neck; he could still move, but he was stopping himself. Snoke wasn’t doing anything to Ben right now, at least not physically. It was as if he was crying, shaking, screaming, but trying to repress all of these feelings under his shadowy appearance. 

“Ben.”

The raspy words left Rey’s mouth without her even realizing. She barely heard the name beyond the ringing in her ears and Snoke’s deep, throaty laughter. But Ben heard it; he perked up ever-so-slightly, a gesture just barely visible beneath his hair, the kind of gesture Rey wouldn’t have noticed if she weren’t on the ground looking up at him. 

“For being a true Jedi, you must die, child.” Snoke’s raspy words flooded Rey and Ben’s ears, carrying a gravity with them that absolutely terrified both parties. However, there was one difference between them: Ben had a plan. 

She reached her right hand out to him, his dead eyes observing the gesture mournfully. He couldn’t do anything to save the girl that had tried so desperately to save him and understand him.  
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t do anything. 

Suddenly, the cold fingers of the force gripped Rey’s chest, her scalp, her legs and her neck, pulling her to the ground and flipping her around so she was facing Ben, her back to the First Order’s leader. “My worthy apprentice, son of darkness, heir apparent to Lord Vader, where there was conflict, I now sense resolve.”

Ben’s emotions were unchanging, his eyes unmoving, his face a blanket of stone, masking the storm of rage beneath him. 

“Where there was weakness, I now sense strength within you,” Snoke continued, the grand power of his words continuously increasing. “Now, fulfill your training and complete your destiny.”

Eyes widened with panic, Rey pleaded with Ben as best as she could, both with body language and verbally. 

“Please, please, Ben...don’t do this.” 

That laugh. That sinister, haunting laugh belonging to the man responsible behind all of this. She would remember it in her nightmares for years afterwards. 

“Do you think you can actually turn him?” Snoke spat out between chuckles that sounded more like a fried engine starting. “Back to the light? Foolish child, Ben Solo is gone. There is nothing left. Nothing but Kylo Ren.”

Slowly, as if the slightest error would kill him (and it surely would), Ben fell down onto a single knee, nearly the same height as Rey in her position. His fingers gripped the handle of the saber; Ben rose back up, his face stone and unreadable, his posture determined, and his body language screaming resolve and power. 

_______________________________________________

Rey remembered her vision at Maz Kanata’s palace. 

The voice, the Force, was calling her, a magnetic whisper in the dark, drawing her closer and closer to this dull, simple chest. She popped it open, revealing the gray rod of steel that constituted the handle of the sword. The chest, the mystical energy surrounding her, the lightsaber; it all felt like a fairy tale. 

As soon as she touched it, what felt like an electrical shock immediately shot through her skin. 

Her mind was darting every which way. Visions of the past and what she assumed was the future began to manifest in her brain. 

She heard the voice of an old man overlaid with the mechanical, fiendish breathing of some…monster. She saw an image of some city miles in the sky, bigger than any ship she ever saw, partially masked in the clouds. The clouds turned to rain, and suddenly, Rey was on her back against the wet, cold ground of a foreign world. Some black figure was standing above her, their face obscured by a dark helmet and the downpour of water. 

Before Rey could even comprehend that this...person was about to kill her, a line of fire shot through their chest. The figure collapsed to the ground, revealing the source of the flame; an obsidian handle and a warrior of the Dark Side, standing a few feet from Rey, looking down on her with an unmoving, mechanical face. 

The face of Kylo Ren. The face of Ben Solo. 

____________________________________________

She supposed this was what it was like when somebody’s life flashed before their eyes. 

Rey’s eyes were wavering, quivering with moisture. She tried not to cry, only partially failing; a single, wide tear fell down her face, visible to Ben against her tanned, defined face. But he couldn’t focus on that; he needed to concentrate. Subtly and slowly, without anyone even noticing, he began to curl his index finger, while on the other side of the room, his—no, Rey’s saber—began to slightly turn.  
Snoke closed his eyes, another bout of laughter rising up from deep within his core. “My apprentice, all I see is you defeating your enemy. You will be consumed with power, a master of darkness, and you will ignite your saber, striking down your enemy!” 

He was right. 

Ben folded his fingers in on themselves, and a few meters away, a line of plasma shot out of the Jedi lightsaber, piercing Snoke’s arms and center. A gasp of dying, pained air escaped the Supreme Leader’s lungs, and his aged, deformed eyes shot open, just in time to see the betrayal of his apprentice with his own eyes; the last thing he ever saw. 

Ben called the lightsaber to him, maintaining the angle and position of the weapon as he did so; Snoke’s archaic body fell apart, and Rey’s scarred arm shot out from the floor, Ben allowed the saber to fly into her proximity as she plucked it out of the air. 

She leaped to her feet, and suddenly, Ben’s entire composure shifted. He seemed to just slightly relax, the firmness and fixation of his eyes faintly softening. Seeing his calmness and realizing that his silent intimidation and her brush with death were all part of his plan granted Rey a deep, true sense of relief, energizing her beyond belief. The two of them were so entranced by the sight of each other they almost forgot about the Crimson Guards running at them with drawn weapons. 

Almost. 

She gave him one quick glance, and a moment of historical compassion and understanding fell over them as a curtain. Rey thought back to the legends she was told as a child, and she realized that in spite of the fighting and pain and mystical powers and grand adventures, her life wasn’t like one of those stories. 

In the stories, as childish and naïve as it may seem, the bad guys were never friends with the good guys, and they never stopped fighting. Rey learned young that life wasn’t like these fairy tales; for once, she was grateful for this fact. 

Trying to express all of these feelings into a single glance at her friend, Rey read Ben’s body language as best as possible, and worked to synchronize herself with him, matching his movements against their enemies blow for blow. 

Back-to-back, the Light and the Dark worked together as one. 

The guards closed in on her, and everything seemed to flow in slow motion. Rey crouched down slightly, knees bent in a battle stance; her scratched hands wrapped tightly around the warm metal of her weapon with a relaxed yet strong grip, eyes narrowed in focus on her prey.

______________________________________

Her back was against the wall.  
Rey’s energy had been draining throughout the fight. Her rage gave her the strength to plow through the first couple of guards. They were fast and fluid, working together to try to separate, disorient and kill Rey and Ben; they only succeeded in the first step of that three-pronged plan.

They might have been fast, but compared to the lightweight saber in Rey’s palm, their weapons were clunky, better fit for gladiatorial entertainment than a lightsaber duel. Rey tore through their weapons with a fury that seemed to freeze the expressionless guards in their place, long enough for Rey to slice their Crimson forms into nothingness.

But this strength would only get so far, and Rey knew it. Hoping to ride the wave longer, she was drastically unprepared when one of the taller, swifter guards came at her with two small blades, each less than half the length of her own beam of brilliant blue plasma emerging from her saber.

Rey hoped that the length of her blade would be the death of him; even if she couldn’t defeat his iron defenses, getting close would at least increase the risk that he accidentally stabbed himself on her lightsaber.

No such luck.

The guard, presumably their leader, anticipated this crude, half-baked strategy and rushed at Rey, keeping himself light and fluid, avoiding the thrust of her blade and latching her forearm with red gloves and a death grip that would surely bruise the next morning. He stopped Rey dead in her tracks, restriction his own movement in the process.

"Ok, he’s starting to really piss me off," she muttered. 

Without even thinking of what she was doing, Rey angled her head upwards, tilted her head back slightly, before throwing it forward with all of the strength her neck could muster. Against his thick helmet, it probably hurt her more than it did him; but it accomplished its job, and Rey escaped his grip. She barely made it out alive before he slashed at her with one of his blades of ruby energy, the knife skimming her shoulder and both burning and slicing her skin. It was a terrible sensation on its own, but Rey powered through.

Every stroke of her blade and every rush to or away from a new opponent seemed to stretch and strain Rey’s muscles, still burning with white-hot pain from Snoke’s torture.  
But she didn’t mind, not too much. It hurt, but it didn’t actually hinder Rey’s movements. Cocking her head to the side and cracking her neck, Rey confidently adjusted her footing. “Pain is fuel,” she whispered; and it would be the fuel for her victory.

She tried to rush again, this time holding her saber off to the side, its cobalt blade extending horizontally in front of her chest to block any potential attacks. This was successful, but only barely; the speed of the guard suddenly increased, a burst of agility coming out of nowhere, and he threw himself to the side, dodging Rey’s blade and angling its trajectory away from him with one of his knives, the second knife shooting outwards at her face.

Rey barely threw her head to the right in time, the heat line of plasma clipping a few hairs off the side of her scalp, and without even thinking, she threw her blade upwards, slicing the second knife into two useless, melting pieces of steel.

Once again, the guard gripped Rey’s saber, this time grabbing the young Jedi off-balance so she couldn’t angle her head and give him another headbutt.

She was running low on energy and she was completely void of ideas.

I’m going to die, she thought to herself. I won’t make it out of this room alive.

Rey looked over at Ben, only to find a horrifying sight: her ally, her friend, in a chokehold with the only remaining guard, the crimson figure tightly pressing his black metal staff against Ben’s throat; all while Ben pushed back with all the strength he could muster at his awkward angle, barely avoiding getting the life choked out of him.

Rey didn’t know if this sight gave her inspiration, ignited a familiar and powerful sense of protectiveness, or simply transformed Rey into an avatar of pure, unfiltered fury, but she suddenly got the stupidest idea she ever had:  
She should drop the saber.

She loosened her grip on the saber just slightly that it couldn’t be knocked out of her hands, but visibly enough that her opponent would notice. As soon as she noticed the slight tilt of his helmet at her palm, she knew she got him: his focus on the weapon in her hand, Rey pushed her arms against each-other as best as she could, making herself as tight and compact as possible, before releasing her fingers. The guard’s concentration solely on the sapphire blade, Rey slipped past his crimson arms, ducking below the hot pain of his knife, and grabbed her own saber in a reverse grip position with her left hand, before throwing her entire arm to the right, the saber slicing through the soft flesh and tough armor, killing her foe instantly. Rising up to her feet, Rey looked over at Ben, his position unchanged since the split-second it took for her to finish off her opponent.

“BEN!”

His obsidian eyes suddenly shooting to the side, his gaze found the piece of silver Rey threw into the air. Ben released his hold on the staff in front of him, but before the final guard could take advantage of this opening and choke the life out of the Dark Jedi, Ben plucked the lightsaber out of the air, his thumb meeting the black button on the handle and igniting the small relic. A ray of plasma shot past his temple and through the forehead of the man choking him.

The corpse he just created falling lifelessly to the ground behind him with a dull thud, Ben stood tall in a brief moment of relief and triumph, before immediately falling to the ground. Ben took in a series of quick, deep breaths, almost intoxicated at the taste of oxygen, his soft, gloved hand holding onto his neck as if he were terrified his windpipe would shoot into the sky at a moment’s notice.  
“Ben!” Rey shouted, her tired legs carrying her across the room to the former Jedi. She slipped her arms underneath his expanding chest to support his massive stature, feeling the oxygen surge into his strained lungs with every breath.

She stayed there for a couple seconds, pressing her thin frame against his black clothing as she did her best to keep him from falling over. When his breathing became less audible and adopted a steadier pace, she turned her head to him, his black locks stroking her temples as she did so.

“Are you alright?”

Nodding his head yes as he took in another burst of air, Ben planted his gloved palm against the reflective steel ground and pushed himself to his feet.

“No, but I’ll be fine.”

Pushing herself upwards to match Ben, Rey rose to her feet, his arm draped around her neck. She felt her energy fading to dangerously low levels, exhaustion and pain flashing throughout her body. Ben sensed his ally’s weakness and reached out to Rey’s hand, pulling her arm up and draping it over his neck, supporting her body weight as she did his own.

“Lean on me,” he uttered, his words still lacking in oxygen. “I can help you.”

The two walked in silence, Rey’s boots making a soft, full click sound against the metal. The silence only lasted a second.

“What the hell happened to your arm?”

Rey looked up at Ben, then turned her head slightly away from his gaze to the burning cut on her forearm. Pulling her gaze away, Rey looked back down at her reflection in the floor. “It’s nothing, I promise.”

She expected Ben to resist and insist on patching it up instantly, but he had enough common sense to realize that Snoke’s killer wandering around a First Order ship crawling with soldiers and looking for a First Aid Kit wouldn’t work.

“Let’s bandage and disinfect that when we get down.” His voice still sounded dissatisfied and angry with Rey’s injury, but he didn’t let his anger bother him too much.

“Down where?”

“Anywhere but here.”

His nostrils flared slightly, his obsidian gaze hardened and turned into a black fire, and Ben found his eyes tracing the two halves of Snoke’s body.

“He’s dead, Ben.” Rey found herself speaking without even thinking of what she was saying, or what she was trying to convey. “He can’t hurt anyone anymore.”

“He already hurt you,” he retorted, his voice gentle and soft, completely unaffected by the malice and anger he felt.

Rey didn’t reply; no use arguing against facts.

A booming sound occurred overhead. The rushing of spacecrafts, the detonation of bombs adjacent to the Supremacy, the blasting of ship-mounted cannons. Rey’s attention returned to her friends in the Resistance, and she shifted into a state of panic. Slipping under Ben’s arm, she ran over to the telescope Snoke aimed at Crait. Ignoring the device, she looked out at the sea of ruined metal and obliterated Resistance ships.

“Ben, we need to save them.”

She was met with a deafening silence. Looking back, she found Ben regaining his steady posture and his body turning past the dismembered, charred halves of his former master; his eyes focusing on the empty throne of Snoke.

“Ben?”

She didn’t mean to sound so helpless, so worried, but she had worked to hard to bring him back to the Light, and she couldn’t let him fall into the Dark for a second time.

“For the last six years, this was what I wanted.” His voice was heavy and slow, devoid of pain and indecision. “To be free of him.”

“Ben,” Rey quickly told him with a gentle voice, approaching with light steps and a raised hand, as if she were taming a wild animal. “Don’t do this.”

“I’m not.” Ben’s reply was instantaneous, as if he had the foresight to predict Rey’s exact, fearful reaction. “It is the tradition of the Sith,” he continued, “for the apprentice to defeat the master, so every generation would become stronger than the last. Snoke…molded me without this ideology, so he would never fear being usurped and he could keep me in line.”

Truth be told, Rey thought he lost his mind; something about the collective euphoria and repressed thoughts finally reaching Ben’s mind after half a decade had made the man snap. She let him continue, nonetheless.

He turned back to her, deep intakes of oxygen rushing into his circulatory system as he tried to calm himself down.

“I defeated him nonetheless…for what? To continue his cruelty, or reestablish the traditions of a group that should have died centuries ago?”

“Ben, talk to me. What are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying that I refuse to be his puppet any longer. I refuse to be anyone’s puppet. I’m tired of being controlled by the past; all it does is bind us to the present and prevent us from moving into the future.”

His left hand moved to the crossguard lightsaber on his belt, his right to the lightsaber of his grandfather, to Rey’s saber. Tightening the grip of his right hand around the handle for a split second, Ben observed the distorted reflection of his face in the metal, staring back at him with an emotion that barely existed.

“I tried to be my uncle’s apprentice. I tried to be Snoke’s apprentice. I tried to be my grandfather. No more.”

Lowering his right hand slightly, Ben pulled his gaze away from the Jedi saber and looked up at Rey, throwing the weapon back at her. She effortlessly caught it without pulling her eyes away from him.  
“It’s time to let all of it die: the First Order, the Resistance, the Jedi, the Sith. I need to be my own man, and I need to discover what that entails.”

Stepping forward, he extended his hand at Rey.

“Rey, I want you to join me.” He was beginning to choke up; tears began welling in his eyes.

Her voice was firm, her tears more obvious than his own. “I’m not like you.”

“Of course you are,” he quickly replied. “We’re both outliers to the rest of this galaxy.”

“I’m not like you,” Rey repeated, lowering her head in shame and mournful sadness, “because I don’t have a life to leave behind, and I don’t have a heritage to renounce. Finn, and Chewie…they’re all I have.” She let the tears slip past and fall down her face onto the metal of Anakin’s saber. “I’m not going to let them die.”

“They won’t,” he retorted. “We can stop all of this useless fighting, you and me. We can finally end the war my parents tried to end three decades ago, and we can save your friends.” The moisture in his eyes glimmered in the light of the throne room, his voice growing more unsteady with every wavering word.

His hand was tremoring, and Rey looked past her weapon and at his dark glove. Rolling the saber into her belt, Rey reached forward and gripped his hand in her own.

“Ben, I—“

She was cut off by the Resistance fleet ramming into the Supremacy, knocking both out.


	2. Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ta-da! Thought this was gonna be a oneshot? So did I, actually. Sorry for not writing this sooner.
> 
> Anyways, our heroes get the hell off the Supremacy.

Rey awoke to the smell of smoke in her lungs. 

She coughed. She was already winded before from fighting the guards, and now she felt like an X-Wing had collided directly with her chest. She put one knee on the ground, trying to will herself back to her feet. 

“...Ben,” she muttered to herself, barely a whisper. He was laying in front of her on the ground. She couldn’t have been out for more than a minute, but it felt like hours longer. 

She crawled over to him, dragging her exhausted, bruised body on the floor. Every muscle hurt, but now was no time for rest. Now was the time for action. She could rest once she met up with Leia again. She could rest once she found out where Finn was. She could rest once her job was done. 

Reaching the (former) Dark Jedi, she tried to shake him awake. Her left arm--the one that had been nicked by a guard’s knife minutes earlier--was starting to burn, but she pushed through. 

“Ben, wake up. We have to go.”

No response. She started to internally panic. Had this been for nothing, this whole time? After all the fighting--all the bloodshed--was she about to lose her most powerful ally? It seemed as if destiny was telling her not to go to Ben; one obstacle after another made itself known to them. 

But Rey had already defied destiny once. The stories of old that Luke told her never told of any alliance between the light and the dark. She would defy destiny again, if need be. She would bring him home to Leia. 

She rolled him over to his back, able to see his face. His hair was messy and sweaty, covering the left side of his face, and upon closer examination, Rey noticed a purple bruise forming around his neck from when the guard choked him. They would both need to heal later. 

“Ben, come on.” She was getting louder, more desperate. She put a hand to his face in an instinctive gesture, then looked down at his chest. After a moment, it rose, ever so slightly. He was breathing. He was alive. 

A slight groan escaped from his throat. It sounded pained, forced. He was alive, but hurt, as anyone would be if a ship crashed into their freighter. 

A smile blossomed onto Rey’s face. “Oh, thank god, Ben. You’re alive.” She shouldn’t have doubted him; he was a tank, in every sense of the word, able to withstand more damage and dish it back than any other fighter she knew of. 

Rey got to her feet, wincing slightly as she did so. Her right leg burned white-hot with pain; she must’ve landed on it funny when their ship crashed. 

Speaking of which, what *was* that, she thought to herself. A ship as big as the Supremacy shouldn’t be shaken by anything; the Supremacy was as big as any Star Destroyer, probably many times bigger. Even a head-on collision shouldn’t damage it unless the opposing ship was absurdly large, and Rey knew the Resistance had no such ships on them. 

Unless the object wasn’t absurdly large, but impossibly fast. 

“No,” Rey whispered, the gears turning in her mind. Looking down at Ben, she abandoned him for a moment to run back over to the telescope in the corner. Looking out it, she saw the faint remnants of the Resistance fleet...but their biggest ship was gone. 

“No, no, it can’t be.” Rey turned pale, realizing the implications. 

It was the ship Finn was on, the Raddus. No ship could match the Supremacy, but if the Resistance took their biggest ship and launched it at the fastest speed they could--at light speed--it’d certainly do major damage. The last time Rey saw Finn three days ago, he was unconscious from the injuries he sustained on Starkiller Base, with Leia watching over him. Did he get evacuated? Did anyone get evacuated?

Several feet behind her, Ben groaned in pain, starting to turn. He was beginning to wake up. 

“Ben, we have to move,” she told her friend. She rushed to his side, gripping both hands around his left wrist. She planted her feet, and started to pull him up. He outweighed her by at least 50 pounds, maybe more, but she had to get them out of here. His black-clad body suddenly seemed heavier, like it could barely sustain its own gravity; he must’ve taken as much damage as her when the ships collided. 

Her attention was suddenly diverted to the closed door in front of them, the sound of quick, light steps; the sound of someone running at top speed. 

Rey looked behind her. This...wasn’t a good sight. The Supreme Leader was dead, his apprentice was unconscious, his guards were slaughtered, the entire room was on fire, and the only one awake and standing was the last Jedi and the very girl who defeated Kylo Ren last time. 

Yep, this wasn’t ideal. 

The door shot open automatically. On the other side, panicked and breathing heavy, was a ginger man of medium height with cold blue eyes, a blaster in hand and a First Order uniform decorated with medals. His eyes went wide as dinner plates once his gaze caught the two halves of Snoke, and he turned to the right, noticing Rey. 

“Who are you?” Rey asked, shooting a quick glance back at Ben. This wasn’t good. If more soldiers started pouring in here, the two of them were toast. 

Hux spoke into a radio attached to his suit. “We have a Code Crimson. The Supreme Leader...has…” he started to pause, barely able to believe the sight in front of him. “...he has been assassinated, but the culprit remains.”

On the other end, another general spoke, his voice deeper, scratchier. The audio cut out slightly; the collision must’ve messed with communication systems. 

“Assassinated? Are you sure, General?”

Hux spoke back into the radio, making eye contact with Rey, aiming his blaster at her head. His eyes hovered over Snoke’s lower half. “I’m positive.”

Hux noticed Rey’s protective gaze over Ben, and spoke once more into the radio. There wasn’t just one assailant. 

“Scratch that, the culprits remain. Both of them. I need all available units to the throne room. Send in Phasma and the Knights.”

“Sir, Phasma is missing. We have reason to believe the rebels killed her.”

Rey couldn’t help but let a smile form on her face. Phasma? That name sounded familiar. That must’ve been the captain Finn fought back on Starkiller Base. Seemed that some of her friends were aboard the Supremacy at the same time as her. 

Hux shook with anger, barely able to contain it. “WHAT!?”

He scoffed, and took aim at Ben Solo, Kylo Ren, the prince of darkness and his longtime rival. A sly grin appeared on his thin face. “Fine. I can eliminate one of the assassins from here.”

“STOP!” Rey shouted. She jumped in front of Hux’s aim, but he didn’t flinch. 

“Who am I? Who the HELL are you, little girl?!” Hux shouted. His finger wrapped around the trigger, prepared to take aim. 

She reached for her saber...only to find an empty holster on her belt. She’d forgotten that it was still tightly gripped in Ben’s hands when the ship crashed. Rey hesitated for a moment, before looking the man in the eye. “I am Rey of Jakku, and I am the Last Jedi.”

In the span of a millisecond, three tings happened, in this order. 

First: Rey of Jakku held out her hand, ready to move him away with the Force. She closed her eyes, instinctively calling upon the life force of the universe around her, what Luke had taught her. 

Second: General Armitage Hux didn’t hesitate to fire a blaster shot at Rey. He squeezed the trigger, and a bolt of scarlet, lightning-hot plazma shot out at the Jedi. 

Third: the bolt stopped mere inches in front of Rey. 

“What the…” Hux asked, trailing off. 

The redhead general looked behind the Jedi to find Ben Solo, bloodied and battered and barely breathing, on his feet, his own glove stretched out. 

“Don’t. Touch. Her.”

Hux’s eyes went wide with fear. Rey looked back at Ben briefly, relief flooding through her system, before focusing her attention back on Hux. With a flick of her wrist, she summoned the forces of the universe and slammed him into the nearby wall. His head hit the metal with a dull thunk, knocking him out. 

Armitage Hux fell to the ground, unconscious. Mere seconds after, Ben started to lose his balance, slightly lightheaded. 

“BEN!” Rey shouted, running over to him. She caught him in her arms, and pulled him back up. 

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” he reassured her. “Just...still hurt. That trick takes a lot out of me. I’m not used to using it while injured.”

Rey looked down at him, baffled. “Could...could you always do that?”

Ben started to walk on his own, regaining his balance, his strength rapidly returning. “I...I suppose so. I don’t do it often. No need, really. Not unless I want to stop a blaster from hitting something far away from me.”

Rey allowed herself to chuckle. “You’ll have to teach me sometime.”

The two started to walk out of the throne room, burning and desolated, a trail of corpses behind them, with an unconscious general at the end. 

_______________________

Upon walking out of the room, Rey and Ben were met with a deafening alarm, a god-awful blaring noise that made the Jakku scavenger cover her ears. Ben winced at the sound himself, neither fond of it. But amidst it all, he was able to make out something else. 

“Rey. Footsteps.”

“Soldiers, Ben. Probably an entire battalion.”

“We have to go,” he told her, taking out his lightsaber. 

“Agreed. Lead the way.”

He took off into a full sprint in the opposite direction. Rey followed shortly behind. As he came to the end of the hallway and made a sharp left, he reached behind him and pulled her lightsaber out of his pocket. 

“Here. You’ll want this.”

He tossed it at her, and she effortlessly plucked it out of the air, as if they’d rehearsed it a million times. Everything about working with Ben was effortless. 

His strength was returning even more. The Force made both of them powerful, and soon they were rapidly gaining momentum, flying down the surprisingly abandoned corridors. 

Rey cut ahead of her partner, about to turn into a corridor, before she suddenly pulled back, holding out her arm to block him. 

“What is it?” he asked her, looking back to make sure nobody followed them. His ears were getting used to the deafening sound of the alarm, and he could easily make out the footsteps, mere hallways behind them, along with shouting. His grip tightened on his lightsaber, his thumb hovering over the trigger button. 

“Voices,” Rey told him. “Fire.” She poked her head out from around the corner, and was met with a surprising sight. 

The main docking hangar of the Supremacy was in ruins. The outer shell of the entire corridor had been decimated by whatever ship crashed into them. They must be getting closer to the epicenter of the collision. Whatever happened, it might have even split the ship in two. But the ceiling wasn’t the only damaged section: the floor had seemingly started to cave in as well, a massive hole in the center of the hangar, no doubt having consumed numerous ships. 

Of the TIE fighters and walkers remaining, only a few seemed operational. The rest were consumed with an inferno. Fire surrounded everything. Stormtroopers frantically ran around trying to put it out with extinguishers. 

“Rey, what the hell happened?” Ben asked, poking his head out and watching the sight for himself. “What hit us?”

“Something bad, Ben. Something really bad,” she frantically told him. 

“Are your friends in trouble?” he asked her. She shook her head. 

“I’m not sure, not yet. We need to find a way off this ship.”

He squinted his eyes, examining the ablaze hangar. “There’s no way we can cut through here, right?”

“Not a chance,” she told him. “It’s too open, and there are too many stormtroopers around. I have no idea if the floor is even steady. We need another way, some way that leads to an escape pod or a small ship.”

Ben thought long and hard. He’d spent days--no, weeks--in this ship. He knew it like the back of his hand, but his head was a mess. And without knowing what hit them or where, he had no idea how bad the damage was or how mangled the hallways were. 

“I know a way, but I should warn you,” he said, turning around and facing the way they came. “We’re about to have company.”

“We can take them,” Rey said, pulling out her lightsaber. She hit the trigger button, and her face was illuminated by a familiar blue light, as an azure blade instantly came out of the hilt. 

“How much experience do you have in deflecting blaster fire?” Ben asked her. Rey shook her head. 

“Not much, but I’m a quick learner,” she told him. “I can figure it out.”

Ben made a face and shook his head, examining his options. “I can’t take that risk. I can’t risk you getting hurt. We’ll find another way. We always do.”

Ben grabbed Rey by the wrist and started pulling her back the way they came. She quickly turned off her lightsaber, putting it back in her holster. 

“Ben, what’re we doing? They’ll catch us!”

“Not if we’re fast,” he told her. “We’re taking another path.”

They almost came back to the corridor in front of the throne room, now swarming with stormtroopers. This time, Ben made a sharp left, into an alternate hallway. The lights on this one were flickering, a side effect of the collision. It was much narrower, with fewer alternate pathways and doors. Two stormtroopers were already in the hallway’s end, but Ben instantly ejected his own lightsaber and cut through them like a hot knife through butter.

“There’s a set of pods up here, but it’ll be close,” Ben warned his partner. “Follow me!”

They started to round the corner and make a mad dash for the pods just as more royal guards came into their hallway. One of them threw a crimson spear at Rey, but in a split-second her lightsaber was back in her hand. She dodged the spear, sidestepping out of its trajectory, and cut it in half mid-air. The tip of it was coated in crimson plasma, the same energy that had reinforced the other guards’ weapons back in the throne room. As the upper half of the spear fell to the ground, she kicked it back into her free hand with her foot and threw it back at the guard, stabbing it directly into his eye. 

“Rey, we don’t have time,” Ben told her. “MOVE!”

Stormtroopers fired at them, and the two leaped out of the way, a blaster shot grazing Ben’s neck; he could feel the heat slightly charring his neck as he moved. 

“Here it is,” he told her, pointing at another hangar at the end of his line of sight. “MOVE!”

The hangar was much larger than the ablaze one they took a glance at a few minutes ago. This one was coated in a thinner, gray metal and stretched out horizontally, with windows outlooking the cosmic battle in front of the Supremacy. It seemed to be filled with escape pods, all pointing out onto the surface of Crait. 

First Order soldiers, generals and Shocktroopers walked up and down, trying to evacuate from the ruined Supremacy as fast as possible. Most didn’t pay them any attention, but a few noticed and began shouting. 

“There they are!”

“Stop them!”

“They murdered the Supreme Leader!”

“Kylo Ren is a traitor!”

“She’s the last Jedi!”

Ben paid them no attention. Rey...took a different approach. 

She pulled out her lightsaber, cutting through two stormtroopers in an instant. Two generals took sight of this and tried to flee out of an escape pod, but she Force-pulled them out to make room for her and Ben. A third general pulled a blaster on her, but she swiftly cut off the end of the blaster and stabbed the man in the gut. 

Ben used the Force on one of the escape pods, pressing the trigger button. Lights within the pod activated, and it started to automatically take aim on the salt planet below them. He was stopped by an unexpected guest on the way in. 

A Shocktrooper briefly crossed paths with him, pulling out two plasma-enforced daggers. He looked quite a bit like the Praetorian Guard that challenged Rey back in the throne room, but with more armor on his shoulders and knees, and clad in black instead of red. The man activated the trigger on his two weapons, and the daggers lit up with purple electricity. 

Ben took a stride forward, swinging his lightsaber down in an arc. The man intercepted Ben’s attack with his left dagger, prepared to strike with his right blade, only for Rey to catch up and block it with the tip of her own lightsaber. 

The Shocktrooper had a brief moment of clarity, wherein he realized his fatal mistake: trying to cross a Knight of Ren and the legendary Rey of Jakku. 

In perfect unison, Rey ducked down and struck low, the same trick she used back in the throne room. At the same time, Ben side-stepped, cut off the guard’s right hand, and aimed high, taking a strike at his head. The two lightsaber-wielders worked in unison, making the man mincemeat in a split-second. 

Ben looked down at Rey, impressed at how quickly he was learning, but the moment didn’t last. The sound of blaster fire suddenly changed his focus. 

He flipped around and was met with at least 30 stormtroopers, clad in white, all taking aim at him. Remembering what Luke taught him as a teenager, he allowed the Force to take control, harnessing it in his eyes and ears. He reflexively blocked three blaster bolts coming from the right--redirecting two of which back at the heads of those who fired--and reflected two more from the left, before making a sharp turn to the right. He turned off his lightsaber and jumped forward, grabbing Rey with one arm and hitting the “EJECT” button with another, practically tackling Rey into the escape pod as it took off.

In an instant, the doors to the escape pod closed. The sounds of fighting were gone: all that blaster fire, heavy footsteps and screaming was replaced with a slight *boom* as their escape pod took off, followed only by the sounds of heavy breathing and the quiet of space. 

Rey and Ben each closed their eyes and fell back, having a moment to rest for the first time since she arrived on the ship. He collapsed on the right side of the pod, her on the left. His eyes hovered over the cut on her arm. 

“Does it hurt?” he asked her, gesturing weakly with his sheathed saber. She shook her head no, then looked back at the bruises on his neck. 

“Do those hurt?” she asked, without even pointing. He shook his head no. A lie. 

For many people, there are a few defining moments in your life--maybe less than a half dozen--that completely alter the trajectory of your existence. As Ben Solo--name reclaimed in full for the first time in years--pondered on his dead master, the trail of corpses in his wake, and the girl in front of him who cut open his face mere days earlier; he realized this was one such moment. 

I have no regrets, Ben thought. This is the only path. 

And for the first time in years, Ben smiled, content with his decision. 

“Rey,” he told her, putting his saber away and looking out at the surface of Crait, “let’s go save our friends.”

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea if I will continue this. I just wanted to make a universe where Ben wasn't a dumbass and had a better choice of words.


End file.
